I am a geoscientist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota - Duluth, where I teach Earth History , Geochemistry, and Geobiology (co-taught with Biology Department).

My work is concerned with the the geochemical conditions of Earth’s early oceans, enabling us to better understand how life on earth originated, radiated, and diversified.

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I am interested in deciphering early Earth problems relevant to nascent life.

At present, much of the work in my lab revolves around the genesis of an extinct rock known as “iron formation”, or “IF” for short. These chemical sedimentary rocks form between >3.7 and ~1.8 billion years ago, at a time when most of the ocean is thought to have been without free oxygen.

Because they are formed in the ocean, IF are unique in that they can provide information about what the ocean was like in the distant past. By studying element cycling in the early ocean as it relates to the evolution of the crust-ocean system, we can better determine the conditions under which early life evolved.

Research Areas

Working predominantly in the Precambrian Eon (4600 – 541 million years ago), my research draws from a variety of disciplines including sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, and petrology to focus on questions relating to early Earth processes. To date, my research involves both field and laboratory work, and seeks to determine and test hypotheses related to Precambrian earth-system evolution.

As chemical sedimentary rocks, the primary minerals in BIF are thought to precipitate from seawater, and, if identified, may provide insight into geochemical conditions of Earth’s early oceans where nascent life is hypothesized to have first evolved.
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Undergraduate Earth and Environmental Sciences major Stephen Hanson has been working since January 2016 to characterize the mineralogy and textures of several samples of ~1.9 Ga chemical sedimentary r…